I love this first picture I am sharing. It was taken in 1956 of Mrs. Nellie Biggar's first grade class (which meant they graduated from BHS in 1968) on a float during the Cranberry Festival.

I can only recognize three of the children, including, fourth from left, Richard Gorman (nephew of Mrs. Biggar); sixth from left, Tim McCue; and, at far right, Rick Howard. Maybe some of my readers will recognize some of the other children.

The second picture was taken in 1975 of the Bandon Plaza Gas and Car Wash at the intersection of Highways 101 and 42S, next to what is now the Mexican restaurant Rancho Viejo. This was taken before the Bandon Shopping Center was built and you can see the mobile home business belonging to Tom Campbell across Highway 101.

I will admit that the third photo is not of very good quality, but it's still a great picture of Barry Winters, taken in 1975 in front of Winters Auto Sales, which is now the home of The Inn at Old Town. The building to the right was a Myrtlewood shop at that time and today is occupied by Dan Farmer's State Farm Insurance Co.

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I just saw a Facebook post that said Margaret Lorenz (Mrs. Paul) Tiffany, a 1962 graduate of Bandon High, died recently. Bill Perry posted that Margaret died after a difficult surgery, which she underwent in early January to remove tumors on her pancreas. Her siblings included older brother David, younger brother John and youngest sister, Gail. I know she and Paul have children, but I do not know how many.

Her father Carl Lorenz was a long-time partner/owner of M&L Grocery in downtown Bandon, located where the Minute Cafe parking lot is now.

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I have learned that three of the oldest (in terms of work years) employees at The Wheelhouse/Crowsnest were not rehired by the new owner, Yong Suk Ko, which is a shame.

The three are Denusha Rogers, long-time and very popular bartender in the Crowsnest; Pat Stevenson, who has been a server for many years; and Chef Rick Hass.

I also mentioned last week that another casualty of the purchase was that Art by the Sea Gallery and Studio would have to find a new home. And it appears that they have.

In announcing their latest Community Show, March 6-31,

Art by the Sea said the show would be held at their gallery at 145 Fillmore Avenue SE, which is the shop that formerly housed Truffles and later Klutch, adjacent to the Station Restaurant.

This should be a good location for them, right across Fillmore from The Laurel. This area is bound to grow, with Face Rock Creamery and the Bandon Historical Society Museum across the highway and Bandon Mercantile in the next block. Owners of the creamery are purchasing the former city shops and other property in the vicinity, which will be a definite upgrade for the area.

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Former long-time city attorney Myron Spady was honored by the Bandon Lions Club Wednesday during their weekly luncheon when they officially named the dining room The Myron Spady Room.

Myron, who will be 94 in April, is the last remaining charter member of the Bandon Lions Club, and continues to attend meetings every week. I was invited to the lunch and presented Myron with a collection of photos taken by Western World over the years, which were part of my extensive collection. As he suffers from macular degeneration, Myron hoped to view the pictures when he got back to Pacific View where he has made his home since the recent death of his wife of 70 years, Lillie.

Myron entertained the club with stories about what The Barn (where the meetings are held) looked like when it truly was a barn.

Myron was city attorney when I first joined the city council 40 years ago, in 1977, and we worked well together for many years.

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I was absolutely blown away by the pictures posted on Facebook and in the newspapers of the huge waves that struck the Oregon Coast on Thursday. That may have been the same day, or the day after, that a man was swept out to sea near Depoe Bay.

I just hate to see the photos of the huge waves crashing against the rocks... with people in the photos who are clearly putting themselves in harm's way. And when photos like that appear in print, they glorify this dangerous activity, which could just as easily end with the person being swept out to sea.

One of my faithful readers posted on Facebook that she and another woman were at the South Jetty last week when they watched a man nearly get hit by a huge log, which was thrown onto the shore by a wave. People should stay completely off the beach at this time of year. There is another Facebook post which shows two people (I think a man and a woman) who were down on the beach somewhere photographing the huge surf when a wave crashed over them and washed their photographic equipment out to sea and left them lying in a pile of driftwood. I guess they weren't injured, but if they weren't, it's a miracle.

People do such stupid things ... for a photo or a thrill. Or maybe it's just plain stupidity. You choose ...

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The people of Bandon were lucky they were served by City of Bandon electric on Friday after some 26,000 customers of Pacific Power in Coos Bay, North Bend, Myrtle Point, Coquille and Powers lost power for at least 30 minutes after a tree fell on a main BPA transmission line and caused a massive outage.

The power outage caused intersections to be backed up for blocks in Coos Bay.

Fortunately the outage did not impact public power customers like the City of Bandon and Coos-Curry Electric.

I do know that people north of Bandon are served by Pacific Power, so I would guess that they were also without power.

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I noticed that the holiday newsletter, sent out by the Southern Coos Hospital Foundation, arrived in the mail last week, after several of the "coming events" they were advertising had already happened. Not sure if they didn't get it in the mail in time, or if the post office didn't get it into the boxes.

Two weeks ago, I mailed two checks to women in Bandon, both of whom had Bandon addresses. One lived on Prosper Road and the other lived south of town, but both were rural addresses.

The woman who lives south of town got her letter the next day; the woman who lives on Prosper Road never did get hers.

It's hard to figure out how a letter mailed inside the Bandon Post Office to a Bandon address could get lost.

I checked with the bank to make sure someone had not stolen it out of the woman's mail box and cashed it. But it had not cleared, so my guess would be that it is in the bottom of a mail bag somewhere.

Since it costs $35 to stop payment on a check, I told the woman that when, and if, she ever gets the check to let me know and just tear it up.

I issued her another check and this time I left it with a friend rather than chance that it might get lost again ....

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An article in the Jan. 22, 1915, Bandon Recorder reports on the City of Bandon acquiring its first utility, the water system. The people voted the prior June to pay $48,500 for the system, which had been privately owned for many years.

"With the passing of the water system into the hands of the city, we experience our first venture in municipal ownership and a general good feeling exists among the people of Bandon over the situation and it is felt that a proper solution of the water questions had been made and that the system will be a source of revenue to the city, while at the same time, improvements can be made that will be of a lasting nature."

It was decisions like that by the people of Bandon many years ago that paved the way for the city being able to provide the low-cost utilities that we have enjoyed for decades, and the revenue to help operate a city which receives only 46 cents a thousand in property tax revenue ... which is probably the lowest in the state.